IKEA Philippines hints at food products to be sold online

Home furnishing retailer IKEA on Tuesday hinted at the food products that will be made available in the Philippines through its online platform set to open in the third quarter of 2021.

Some 9,000 articles are expected to be part of the online catalog, but IKEA Philippines manager Georg Platzer said food products will also be available for purchase online, albeit on a limited selection.

"Food is tricky. Food requires different logistics setups to deliver. Food quality is super important, of course, there is no compromise in food safety, so we are thinking about having some of our Swedish food products also to be ordered, but then that's a very limited range," he said in a virtual interview.

"It's definitely not what you get in our restaurants, so the restaurant, everything which could be enjoyed later on in our restaurant, is not going to be delivered," he added.

Platzer said among the food products likely to be made available online are Swedish snacks, candies, cookies, and coffee, among others.

"It's very small, so it's not really like a grocery. I think we have a hundred articles or so in the Swedish food market. Many of them are deep-frozen, so they are anyway excluded from delivery. Anything which is chilled, maybe, is also excluded from delivery," he said.

"We're talking about dry goods and most of it, it's really some condiments, maybe some spices, jam, we have some mustard, but this is just a rough idea, nothing which is yet decided," added Platzer.

Just last month, IKEA said it will start online operations some nine weeks ahead of the opening of its physical store scheduled in the third quarter of 2021.

"The company is bringing Swedish home furnishings and meatballs to millions more people in the coming year as it enters both Mexico and the Philippines, with web shops opening up months before the physical stores in both countries," the company announced then.

In terms of the store in Pasay City where the company is leasing out a 65,000 square meter area in the Mall of Asia Complex, Platzer expressed optimism that the timeframes are still on track. -MDM, GMA News